Many thanks....

I must say from my heart, I was truly stunned and humbled on Friday night to see how many people turned up to the talk I gave at the Ebbw Vale Institute. It was a very wet evening and I know travelling was horrendous, but we still had a packed hall with around 160 attending – with some of you travelling along way to be there. I was told afterwards that unfortunately around 60 were told on the day that the building was at capacity and could not accommodate anymore, so if you were one of these please accept our apologises.

I would like to thank my dear friend Neil for setting the talk up and for all his work in arranging it – plus I would like to thank Neil and his family for the wonderful hospitality they showed my family and myself. I would like to thank the staff at EVI for all their help and for everything that was laid on. My thanks go to Sam, Julian and Justin and the staff who manned the cafe and the bar and to anyone else I may have missed – this is not intentional, I was just so overwhelmed by the turnout and can only remember so many names.

I would like to thank my family, my dear friends Dan, Ian, Ben and Michael for all their help and support. I would like to thank my dear friends Trudy, Brian, Mick and Dan for manning the cameras and for doing so, even though they had a horrendous 6 hour journey from East London. I would like to thank Brian for all the work he did on the night and I know the work he now has to do to produce the DVD. I would like to thank Zoe for the signing she did for Richard and for agreeing to go down to London to finish off the signing for the DVD – and for offering to help get the DVD cases brailed. And last but not least I would like to thank everyone who turned up to make it such a wonderful evening – the evening was truly about all of ‘you’.

I saw so many of you making new friends and swapping telephone numbers and email addresses and during the breaks the hall was alive with chatter – I was so pleased, for this is truly what the talks are about. All I can say is thank you all from the bottom of my heart for a wonderful evening that I truly enjoyed and thank you for making it a night to remember!

I would like to say also that my dear friend Neil has now agreed to become the talks arranger on my behalf. Neil will be dealing with all arrangements and all inquiries from you regarding the setting up of talks in your area. You can get in touch with Neil on this email address neil@tpuc.org

All my love john x

Gyd o fy ngariad sion x